DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.635#0042
RAMA AND SITA 29
a drawing of Ravana which Sita had scrawled on the
floor while conversing with her handmaids about her
captivity. Sita was banished to the forest, where she
gave birth to two sons, Lava and Kusha, who were
brought up by the hermit Valmiki. They were
recognized by Hanuman as the sons of Rama.
According to one version, Sita and her sons then
returned to Ayodhya and passed the rest of her days
in happiness with her husband; but another story is
that the boys wandered into Ayodhya accidentally,
and were recognized and acknowledged by Rama,
who sent for Sita, and in public assembly called upon
her to attest her innocence.
Sita in an agonized appeal invokes her Mother
Earth to come to her aid and be witness of her purity.
"Then the earth was rent and parted, and a golden throne arose;
Held aloft by jewelled Nagas as the leaves enfold the rose,
And the mother in embraces held her spotless, sinless child."
Sita sank back into the earth, and Rama in despair
sacrificed himself in the river Sarayu.
Mr. Romesh Chandra Dutt, whose abridged English
translation I have quoted, says of the Mahabharata
and Ramayana: "It is not an exaggeration to say
that the two hundred millions of Hindus of the present
day cherish in their hearts the story of their ancient
epics. The Hindu scarcely lives, man or woman,
high and low, educated or ignorant, whose earliest
recollections do not cling round the story and the
characters of the great epics. An almost illiterate
oil-manufacturer of Bengal spells out some modern
translation of the Mahabharata to while away his leisure
hour. The tall and stalwart peasantry of the north-
a drawing of Ravana which Sita had scrawled on the
floor while conversing with her handmaids about her
captivity. Sita was banished to the forest, where she
gave birth to two sons, Lava and Kusha, who were
brought up by the hermit Valmiki. They were
recognized by Hanuman as the sons of Rama.
According to one version, Sita and her sons then
returned to Ayodhya and passed the rest of her days
in happiness with her husband; but another story is
that the boys wandered into Ayodhya accidentally,
and were recognized and acknowledged by Rama,
who sent for Sita, and in public assembly called upon
her to attest her innocence.
Sita in an agonized appeal invokes her Mother
Earth to come to her aid and be witness of her purity.
"Then the earth was rent and parted, and a golden throne arose;
Held aloft by jewelled Nagas as the leaves enfold the rose,
And the mother in embraces held her spotless, sinless child."
Sita sank back into the earth, and Rama in despair
sacrificed himself in the river Sarayu.
Mr. Romesh Chandra Dutt, whose abridged English
translation I have quoted, says of the Mahabharata
and Ramayana: "It is not an exaggeration to say
that the two hundred millions of Hindus of the present
day cherish in their hearts the story of their ancient
epics. The Hindu scarcely lives, man or woman,
high and low, educated or ignorant, whose earliest
recollections do not cling round the story and the
characters of the great epics. An almost illiterate
oil-manufacturer of Bengal spells out some modern
translation of the Mahabharata to while away his leisure
hour. The tall and stalwart peasantry of the north-